


The Mysterious Death of Steven Merrick

by Hyaluronic



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime, Gen, Nile watched youtube instead of sleeping, Not betad, Not sure really how else to tag this, The circumstances surrounding Merricks death is prime content for BFU:TC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyaluronic/pseuds/Hyaluronic
Summary: Ryan looked at the camera and shook his head, “This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we’re looking into the mysterious case of Steven Merrick, one of the world’s youngest pharmaceutical CEO’s, whose tragic death was thought to be a suicide but the circumstances surrounding the event have left both police and the public baffled.”Nile shrieked and threw the tablet to the floor before she hopped back against the couch; her knees drawn up to her chest and eyes staring wide at the faint glow of her tablet from the floor, her heart beating rabbit fast.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	The Mysterious Death of Steven Merrick

**Author's Note:**

> You guys! Like you guys I was doing research on Merrick for this fic and I saw that Netflix had officially greenlit the Old Guard Sequel like a few weeks ago! How did I miss that? I am so excited we will get to see all our adorkable goobers once more! 
> 
> Anyways, I was back on my Buzzfeed bull again and decided to try my hand at kind of-sort of making a buzzfeed story surrounding Merrick but it ended up being the following weird mix below, hopefully it still turned out decent and enjoyable.

Nile knew she should be in bed, they had to leave early in the morning to rendezvous with Copley to go over the specifics of the case in Lima but she was too deep into the time suck that was the late night underbelly of Youtube. She had already long since passed the cat video phase and had just ended a round of TikTok video compilations and was now well onto her way into the conspiracy theory portion of the Youtube Void.

She was getting ready to click another video when she saw a thumbnail of vibrant police tape with the shadow of a labrys overlaid on a skyscraper with the shadow of a person falling from the windows in her recommended videos, her stomach did a flip flop. She had seen Buzzfeed videos before, it was one of her and her squads guilty pleasures during downtime. Watching true crime videos or spending a few hours watching two nincompoops trot around haunted locations was a pretty awesome way to unwind. The debates of whether Ryan and Shane were screwing each other and if Shane was actually a demon still made her smile years later. 

So against her better judgement and ignoring the warning flutters of anxiety in her chest, she clicked the video. 

The sound of police sirens echoed faintly from her tablet speakers before giving way to the forms of Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej. 

“ _This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we’re diving-” “_

_“Heh, diving because he took a Swan Dive?”_

_“Jesus, sir! We’re not even into the thick of it yet and already you’re making morbid jokes at the expense of the dead guy.”_

_“Well, y’know, gotta keep things light in the **light** of strange and unusual deaths.” _

_Ryan looked at the camera and shook his head, “This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we’re **looking** into the mysterious case of Steven Merrick, one of the world’s youngest pharmaceutical CEO’s, whose tragic death was thought to be a suicide but the circumstances surrounding the event have left both police and the public baffled._” 

Nile shrieked and threw the tablet to the floor before she hopped back against the couch; her knees drawn up to her chest and eyes staring wide at the faint glow of her tablet from the floor, her heart beating rabbit fast. 

_”Nile?”_

Nile jerked to her left at the faint call of her name, “Fine, Andy! Just...just saw a-a _bug?_ ” 

_Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!_ Nile slowly leaned forward, wearily staring at the screen of the tablet from the safety of the couch, swallowing nervously. 

_”I remember reading about his death, supposedly he offed himself because he’d been doing some shady business deals with some less than upstanding characters.”_

The whisper quiet voice of Shane drifted up from the tablet as Nile slowly unfurled herself and leaned down to pick up the device, mouth agape. “Copley, you so suck at your job.” She whispered, watching nervously when the video shifted from Shane making fun to Ryan laughing softly. 

“ _That is actually one of the theories we’ll get to in a second. That being said, to understand why a 30 year old CEO of one the most successful Big Pharma companies in the world took a nosedive from a 60 story building we need to back the info train all the way up to the week before to the Merrick Pharmaceuticals Investors meeting._ ” 

Nile huddled on the couch, subconsciously biting her thumbnail while the video continued to show an animated title card of Merrick standing on a stage delivering a speech to the shadow forms of a fake audience. 

“ _So, supposedly, Merrick had been on the cusp of a medical breakthrough that would basically eradicate dementia, he just needed the monetary backing of a small nation to get it underway._ ” 

“ _Sounds about right, but, Ryan, there have been thousands of different research studies into the cure for dementia, tell me - how does this Silicon Valley reject who dresses like a wanna-be Elon Musk expect to do something so ambitious?_ ” 

“ _This is where it gets a little wonky. Those closest to Merrick said he believed that the answer to this medicinal miracle lied in the genetic code of-_ ” 

“ _I swear to God if you say Aliens…_ ” 

“ _It’s not aliens!_ ” 

“ _Oh-well, good._ ” 

“ _...it’s immortal human beings._ ” 

“ _What!? No! Just- **no!** That’s the most ridiculous thing I think I have ever heard you say, **ever**...and I’ve heard you try and justify the existence of ghosts and their funny little voices... _” 

“What are you watching?” 

Nile clamped a hand over her mouth, tablet falling to her lap as she shrieked at the sudden intrusion. She leaned her head back, her hands falling away, to see Andy staring at her with a raised brow and her hands on her hips. 

“N-nothing?” 

Andy pursed her lips and flopped over the back of the couch grabbing the tablet from Nile’s lap and staring at the black screen with scrolling text of yellow and blue. “So this is what nothing looks like...looks boring.” 

Nile tried to grab the tablet from Andy but was blocked when Andy - with her long ass arms - held it up out of her reach. 

“ _We’re getting off topic here! Just because you’re a genius doesn’t mean that you are just resistant to something as culpable as the idea of immortality._ ” 

At Ryan’s explanation, Nile watched Andy’s eyes widen and question, “What the fuck is this?” 

“Buzzfeed Unsolved: True Crime…” Nile answered quietly, a blush spreading across her cheeks, “and, uhm, The Mysterious Death of Steven Merrick?” 

“No fucking way. I thought Copley got a handle on all of this shit.” Andy said, leaning back against the couch, her eyes never leaving the tablet. 

“ _Apparently there must have been some truth to this whole ideal because Merrick hired an ex-special forces-”_

_Shane waved his hands to interrupt Ryan, “Whoa-whoa-whoa, back up the-the turnip truck here for a second. What kind of medicine nerd runs around with his own personal army.”_

_“Apparently one who’s afraid of a group of immortal human beings?”_

_“You're really stuck on this whole immortal theory, aren’t you?”_

_“Look- I’m just saying that there has to be some truth behind it for Merrick’s inner circle to put weight behind the whole idea._ ” 

“Oh my God.” Andy cringed, handing the tablet back to Nile. “Am I seriously going to have to kill two internet dweebs to keep our secret?” 

“Andy, please don’t kill the Youtube personalities, they’re just conspiracy theory enthusiasts, that’s all, no one actually believes these things. We’re safe -” _Hopefully_ ”-promise.” 

Andy hummed and leaned over to watch Shane wave his hands about to the annoyed look of Ryan, who was shaking his head in amused contempt. 

“ _And on that lovely note let’s get into the theories surrounding Merrick’s death. Our first theory is that it was an inside job.”_

_“Wait...seriously?”_

_“Yeah, apparently, Merrick was getting too ambitious for his little breeches. Demanding more from his employees than physically possible. Which, it would make sense, all the camera footage from the time leading up too and his actual death was mysteriously corrupted and the backup server which housed all the security camera data mysteriously caught fire.”_

_“Spooky but why go through all the trouble when you could just quit?”_

_“Supposedly there was a no-compete clause in all contracts that Merrick employees sign.”_

_“So-what? Oh-no I might not get to work with gross medical things for a few years better go kill my boss?”_

_“Well, when you put it like…_ ” 

“Idiots.” Andy murmured, hefting herself up from the couch and heading down the hallway of the 3 bedroom apartment. 

“Andy?” Nile questioned in concern, making her way off the couch and trailing behind her boss. “Whatcha doing?” 

Andy stopped at a closet in the hallway and rummaged around, hands pulling a dark navy duffle bag from a pile of discarded clothes. “Where are these guys located?” 

“California, why?” Nile asked, hugging the tablet close to her chest, the continued muffled narration of Ryan Bergara drifting up to fill the silence of the hallway. 

“We’re making a pitstop.” The dark haired woman explained, slipping a jacket on and gathering the duffle bag into her arms and continuing down the hall to Nicky and Joe’s room. 

“What?! Andy- _no!_ ” Nile admonished as she chased Andy down the hall. “You can’t! I told you, no one believes these video’s anyways! I mean look!” Nile pulled on Andy’s arm and shoved the tablet into the older woman’s face just as the title card for the video’s third theory popped across the screen. 

“ _Our third and final theory is that his death was caused by the ghost-”_

_“Ryan!” Shane shouted, head slamming against the desk with a dull thud, his voice muffled as he exclaimed, “Ghosts aren’t real!”_

_Ryan laughed, and waved a paper about. “No, wait! Hear me out!”_

_“Go ahead, Ryan.” Shane said with a sigh, “Tell me about the murder ghost.”_

_“Okay, so supposedly Merrick Pharmaceuticals was supplying medicine and other trauma necessities to the US military.”_

_Shane crossed his arms and licked his lips, forehead wrinkled in thought. “Okay, not seeing the connection here.”_

_“Stay with me here. So, apparently when they were collecting evidence from the crime scene some of the blood they collected matched the DNA of soldier who was KIA’d in Afghanistan like a week prior.”_

_“So, let me see I understand your thought process here. Soldier dies in Afghanistan, blames Merrick for-what? Their shitty medical supplies and then decides to travel their dead-ass hundreds of thousands of miles to said medical supplier to just shove him out of a window? Sure, sounds legit.”_

_“How else do you explain the blood-”_

_“If ghosts did exist, and I am definitely not saying they do, but if they did, I’m a hundred percent sure ghosts don’t bleed Ryan. So, I’m calling bullshit on this whole theory.”_

_“But-”_

_“Bulllllllshiiiiiit._ ” 

Andy slowly shoved the tablet down with a sigh, “Fine, but if I hear of any internet sleuths sniffing around anything we have ever touched _ever_. We’re paying a visit to these two and putting the fear of Andy into them.” 

Nile snorted but nodded. 

“Good, go to bed, Kid. We have to be up in like four hours.” Andy said, dropping the duffle bag in the middle of the hall and running a hand through her hair. “Jesus, I hate technology.” 

Nile hugged the tablet to her chest as she hurried down the hall towards her room on the other side of the apartment the faint voice of Ryan Bergara, muffled by the fabric of Nile’s shirt, drifted quietly from the tiny tablet speakers. 

“ _After these last few years, the question still remains: What really happened to Steven Merrick the day of his fall from his penthouse? Was it truly just a tragic moment of depression that lead to a suicide or was there something more foul at play? Hopefully for the sake of Steven Merrick’s family the answers to these questions will come to light for now, though, the case remains **unsolved** ”_

**Author's Note:**

> As always thank you all for taking the time to read my silly ramblings! :)


End file.
